involve teams discussing and working through hypothetical scenarios to assess their response plans and decision-making processes
help identify knowledge, communication, and coordination gaps
e.g., simulate a ransomware attack to test how well the organization’s IT and management teams collaborate to mitigate the threat and restore operations
Failover tests
intentionally causing the failure of a primary system or component to evaluate the automatic transfer of operations to a secondary, redundant system
Simulations
testing technique that replicates the conditions of a real-world disaster scenario or security incident
can reveal potential bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or vulnerabilities
e.g., cyberattack targeting the organization’s network infrastructure to evaluate the effectiveness of security measures and the ability to detect, contain, and remediate the threat
Parallel processing tests
Running primary and backup systems simultaneously to validate the functionality and performance of backup systems without disrupting normal operations
help ensure backup systems can handle the same workload as primary systems during an incident
Documentation
covers planning, implementation, evaluation
supports testing process
includes test plans outlining the objectives, scope, and methods of tests, and roles of people involved
test scripts provided step-by-step instructions for performing tests